Things I’ll take with me from Griffith Centre for Systems Innovation

Did you know dandelion seeds each have different destinies? Depending on how you blow on a dandelion some are primed to float north, others are fated to fly east, south or west and some might stay on the stem. It was this metaphor that really stuck with me when we were processing the news that Griffith Centre for Systems Innovation (GCSI) would not be extending past its exploration period agreement later this year.??

I was disappointed, sad. There were incredible people and organisations connecting with us globally, we were putting our minds to gnarly challenges, there was still so much to do. But it didn’t take long for us to regroup, give ourselves space to reflect, and open the way for whatever it was that needed to flow next.

A dandelion feels hopeful. What magic might happen if the people steeped in the ways of being we’ve nurtured, in the concepts and ideas we’ve explored, fly and let seeds land elsewhere? Some of us will re-form, continuing the work and partnerships of GCSI, exploring new and interesting organisational structures suited to the complexity of shifting systems. And some of us will fly on the wind, seeking a new landing pad to continue the work in a different way, to take the ideas we’ve been immersed in and see what emerges in a new context.

I think I’ll be the later, although you never do know what emerges with time.

Thinking about new beginnings, I naturally turned my mind to the logistics of finding a new opportunity. What type of role? What sort of organisation? What to add to my CV?? It was in one of those ‘shower moments’ when you’re relaxed and your brain can wander freely, I thought to myself “I don’t want a straight up Comms Manager role, I want to do something that integrates all the varied things I’ve been able to participate in here. But what the heck do you call that?” And so, I decided to write about it. To help me untangle what it is I ‘DO’, concepts we’ve explored in GCSI I’ve connected with, and maybe, find an organisation who needs just that.

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First, I was a social justice warrior and a host

The fire in my belly for justice, fairness, and dignity for all started young. As a girl I watched my mum challenge stereotypes in a Greek Australian community and wrote letters to the editor about abortion rights. I also observed frequent and generous hosting at home, where food was central and everyone was welcome and included. For over 10 years I worked various hospitality and retail jobs, absolutely loving the energy and story exchange between so many different types of people.This honed an awareness of what guests need and an attentiveness to all aspects of holding a space. I loved reading and I loved writing. All of these threads still run strong in me.

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Fast forward to 2019 (circa 20 years later!)

At a B Corp gathering I met Alex, then-co-director of The Yunus Centre Griffith (we’ve since changed our name to GCSI). I was a communication professional passionate about the idea that business can and is being done differently – ‘in ways that don’t screw people or the planet’ was my favourite shorthand. Our conversation eventually sparked a move to join the team in its early days to begin building an identity and all the things that go into that.

I did all the regular things a communication professional does. I was custodian of the ‘voice’ of our Centre, honing an approachable style seeking to share generously the things we were finding, offering and thinking. I helped translate the often-complex ideas and writing of our team into social posts, blog posts and web copy that mere mortals might be able to hook into. Always asking – “Why? Why? Why might someone care about this? What might spark an exploration of their own?” The comments across our LinkedIn presence suggest this worked well - we grew from a few hundred to nearly 11,000 followers with frequent shouts of appreciation from people in systems change, regenerative organisations, governments and other universities to name a few.?

I had glorious collaborations with five and dime on branding initiatives, dipped into our course experience, contributed to numerous fantastic publications, facilitated workshops and lent communication expertise to some of our partner projects.??

I used my internal communication and online community management experience to help the team build strong habits that helped us stay connected, productive, and human during lockdowns and as a distributed team.

I feel lucky to have learnt from and contributed to the explorations of GCSI over the last five years. It’s broadened my interest beyond purpose-led business, to the countless creative, hopeful, boundary-pushing initiatives in the systems innovation and regeneration space. It’s helped me on my journey to learn more about Indigenous Knowledges from colleagues at the university and many incredible people we’ve worked with over the years. I have a lot more to learn here.?

Shifting how I saw myself and redefining the role of communication?

It turns out there are so many situations where communication skills are not the main game, yet they bring a really useful perspective to the work. (Ok ok, maybe that’s obvious if you step back and think about it…)

I think a systems-led communication role needs to do things in a way that embodies generative principles. It needs to dive into concepts of complexity, of systems innovation, of collective leadership, decision-making and sensemaking and apply them to the ways an organisation seeks to connect with its diverse stakeholders. Generous and inclusive storytelling and narrative are important, as is bringing together unusual bedfellows for difficult conversations.

Below are three concepts I’ll be taking with me from my time at GCSI.

Organising for systems innovation at scale

One thing that’s really clicked for me is the work and learning we’ve been doing around Challenge-Led Innovation (evolved from Mission-Led Innovation). This framework offers various mechanisms to focus, align and direct innovation across diverse fields and sectors towards addressing the key issues of our times.

While I appreciate this thinking is not static, nor suitable for every situation I do connect with the approach. I’ve found a strong thread with my years of internal communication work in large organisations. There the challenge was to consider ways to help people from all corners of an organisation, each with different structures, constraints, KPIs, relationships – to openly share things they were working on, learning, having troubles with – in service of the organisation’s ultimate goal and purpose. This context resembles three common attributes of Challenge-Led Innovation:

-? ? ? ? Holding Bold ambitions for innovation to move towards future states.??

-? ? ? ? Providing spaces and platforms that enable diverse actors and stakeholders to convene around shared goals, harnessing their collective intelligence.

-? ? ? ? Establishing and maintaining mechanisms that enable coherence.??

I’ve really enjoyed turning my mind to ways we can gather learning across innovation portfolios and draw out insights that could contribute to the momentum of the projects and portfolio and be of use to others.

I think common to all of these situations is the need to zero in on where each 'stakeholder' is at, what it is they need to take the best next step forward and how to deliver that in a way that stays true to your values and goals.

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Convening and gathering

I’ve learnt one of the important ways to enable these Challenge-Led Innovation attributes, and change work in general, is to pay attention to the relational aspects of bringing people together. In my early career the way that often appeared in my work and CV was ‘event management’. In my time with GCSI my view and experience of this has evolved and expanded – we now talk of ‘convening’ or ‘gathering’. For some it may be semantics, but both words speak to me about the intention of bringing people together, considering deeply the elements beyond logistics, and bringing that lens to every time we are with others.

As I said above, my love of hosting is in my DNA. My Greek heritage brings out the ‘feeder’ in me, and it’s in my nature to make guests feel welcome. So imagine my joy when early in my time at GCSI one of our co-directors, Ingrid, showed me this book about Studio Olafur Eliasson in Berlin where food and eating serve as nourishment and a source of creative inspiration and communal discussion for the transdisciplinary studio. Heaven!

We talked of hosting and what that might look like for us, placing it front and centre as a priority. Whether a simple bowl of grapes for a partner meeting or a full-blown catered lunch featuring Esther Perel’s Where Should We Begin cards, we always sought to make connection personal and human, building relational threads between ourselves and those we worked with.

My journey continued as I discovered Priya Parker and her Art of Gathering which influenced everything from our team meetings to the way we hosted workshops. I created and hosted gatherings with such a brilliant group of people. Between us there were at varying times, a learning designer, a wildly creative thinker, a comms person, a super-sleuth / make-anything-you-desire-happen kind of person and we combined the best of all of us, learning from each other as we went.?

After taking Priya’s online course a group of us translated the essence of what we learnt into a guide for the rest of our team – How we gather at GCSI and why it’s important. This now informs the way I think about anything from workshops to large meetings to gatherings with my friends (not without some lingering eye rolling for that last one though…!)

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Nurturing and holding space for regenerative and open team culture

As an experimental Innovation Centre, inspired in the early days by the book Be More Pirate and so many others since then, we enjoyed the space and opportunity to explore different ways of organising our smallish team. We worked towards distributed leadership (as much as was possible within a larger more traditional organisation) and the type of culture and rhythms that made space for emergent thinking. We shared our experience of some of these in our blogs about ‘Chimes’ and Manual of We.

I naturally slid into being one of the holders of these rhythms and ways of being, mashing together internal comms experience, with online collaboration and community management experience, and the ethos of hosting.

I’ve come to realise I’m a good leader.

I rewrote that sentence about 10 times.?

We’re taught to be humble. And as a communication ‘professional’ I write on behalf of others and organisations – I don’t put myself in front often. It’s uncomfortable. But many of my former and current colleagues have strongly suggested I don’t undersell this trait, so here I am.

I don’t formally have any direct reports at GCSI, yet I stepped into informal leadership that seems to have been felt and appreciated by many.

I like people, I am sensitive to energy flows, I can see the bigger picture and am pragmatic. Perhaps it's these things combined that helped that to happen.

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I feel like there will always be more

We explored so many interesting ideas that I imagine will influence my thinking and exploration for a long time – Design Foundations for Systems Capital; Problem Framing; Imagination with Seeding Futures for Wellbeing; Patterns; Shaping Innovation Futures; Demonstrating Impact.

What a brilliant opportunity. A big thanks to Griffith Uni for incubating such a fantastic Centre. And to the wonderful humans who've been on this journey with me.

And so, back to my next opportunity. What would you call a role that integrates all of these things?? ????